DNA test likely in '72 case

Nancy Anderson was 19 when she was slain in her home

Nancy Anderson wanted to experience life in Hawaii before going to college. She left Colorado, got a job at the Ala Moana Center McDonald's restaurant and found a small apartment in Waikiki.

Two months after her arrival, her roommate found the 19-year-old's body on her bedroom floor, stabbed multiple times.

That was 34 years ago -- Jan. 7, 1972.

No suspects were found and police have no leads. Police ruled out everyone considered persons of interest in the homicide through polygraph tests, police said.

Last November, Anderson's brother, Andy, came across a Star-Bulletin article published in 2001 about the 1975 murder of a 16-year-old girl -- a case with similarities to his sister's case. The male suspect in the 1975 case had been confined to the Hawaii State Hospital and was seeking a conditional release, according to the article.

Anderson said that based on the information, police are looking into testing the DNA from that man to compare with the DNA found at the crime scene at his sister's apartment.

Anderson had just returned from a visit home, where she spent Christmas and New Year's with her family.

"It was just a shock to us," said her brother from his Oregon home. "She didn't know that many people."

In 1995, Andy Anderson visited Hawaii and contacted the Honolulu Police Department to ask if they could look into whether any DNA evidence was left at the scene.

Police informed the family someone had dropped a bloody towel down the stairwell, probably wiping his hands of the blood, Anderson said. "We believe it is the murderer's," he said.

She was half-dressed in her uniform, appearing to be getting ready for work, at the time of the killing, Anderson said.

Her doors were locked, the roommate was asleep in the next bedroom and she was not robbed when she was attacked in the bathroom, Anderson said.

She did not have a car, and Anderson speculates perhaps her killer was someone who had offered her a ride.

The Star-Bulletin article said the suspect in the 1975 killing had a pattern of offering rides to young women at bus stops, and had picked up and attacked at knifepoint five females ages 16 to 25 from 1972 to 1973.